The arrival of 5G RedCap tech has certainly given rise to new tech innovations in the way of software and hardware, and a lot of manufacturers have deemed it wise to invest in research and development towards adoption and support for modern 5G solutions. With that being said, MediaTek recently announced that it was expanding its portfolio of modems and chipsets to include 5G RedCap support, in the form of the M60 modem IP and MediaTek T300 chip series.
With these new hardware advancements, MediaTek hopes that it will be easier to facilitate the transition to 5G-NR for different applications for require long-lasting and efficient battery life, such as wearable devices, light-weight AR hardware, IoT modules, and devices built with edge AI in mind. JC Hsu, Corporate Senior Vice President at MediaTek states:
“Our RedCap solutions are a significant part of our mission to democratize 5G, providing our customers
the ability to optimize components and deliver 5G-enabled devices from a range of applications and a
range of price points. The migration to 5G RedCap will replace legacy 4G/LTE solutions, offering significantly better power efficiency and more reliable user experiences compared to leading edge 5G eMMB modem solutions and legacy 4G LTE Cat 4 and Cat 6 devices.”
For those unfamiliar with the term, RedCap is short for “reduced capability,” and is designed to give NR consumers the benefits of 5G, such as enterprise solutions and industrial devices. RedCap makes use of more modern 5G networks and is developed to be optimized for devices with low bandwidth requirements, with lesser costs and complexities involved.
MediaTek says that its T300 series is the world’s first 6nm Radio Frequency System-on-chip solution that’s designed to work with RedCap, and will allow brands to fully utilize the advantages of the growing RedCap adoption within different industries and such. It’s built on TSMC’s 6nm process and integrates a single-core Arm Cortex-A35 in a more compact PCB area. Additionally, the T300 is capable of supporting up to 227 Mbps downlink and 122 Mbps uplink data rates.
With that in mind, MediaTek adds that both the T300 series and M60 will support with 3GPP R17 standard, and are developed to be power efficient with low latency. They’re also equipped with MediaTek’s UltraSave 4.0 technology; the M60 in particular offers up to a 70% reduction in power consumption compared to similar 5G eMBB solutions, and up to 75% power savings compared to 4G LTE solutions.
In terms of market availability, MediaTek says that T300 series devices will be sampled in the first half of 2024, with commercial samples in the second half of 2024.
